Call For Papers

59th Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS 2018)
Paris, France, October 7-9, 2018.
The 59th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS 2018), sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Mathematical Foundations of Computing, will be held in Paris, France, on October 7-9 (Sunday through Tuesday).
Papers presenting new and original research on the theory of computation are sought. Typical but not exclusive topics of interest include: algorithms and data structures, computational complexity, cryptography, computational learning theory, economics and computation, parallel and distributed algorithms, quantum computing, computational geometry, computational applications of logic, algorithmic graph theory and combinatorics, optimization, randomness in computing, approximation algorithms, algorithmic coding theory, algebraic computation, and theoretical aspects of areas such as networks, privacy, information retrieval, computational biology, and databases. Papers that broaden the reach of the theory of computing, or raise important problems that can benefit from theoretical investigation and analysis, are encouraged.

Important Dates:
Submission deadline: 5:00pm PDT, April 6, 2018.
Notification: by July 1, 2018.
Final version of accepted papers due: August 15, 2018.
Submission format:
Submissions should start with a title page consisting of the title of the paper; each author's name, affiliation, and email address; and an abstract of 1-2 paragraphs summarizing the paper's contributions.
There is no page limit and the authors are encouraged to use a "full version" of their paper as the submission. The submission must contain within its first ten pages (after title page) a clear presentation of the merits of the paper, including discussion of its importance, prior work, and an outline (similar to a brief oral presentation) of key technical ideas and methods used to achieve the main claims. This part of the submission should be addressed to a broad spectrum of theoretical computer scientists, not solely to experts in the subarea.

The submission as a whole should include all of the ideas necessary for an expert to verify fully the central claims in the paper. Although there is no bound on the length of a submission, material other than the title page, references, and the first ten pages will be read at the committee's discretion. Authors are encouraged to put the references at the very end of the submission.

The submission should be typeset using 11-point or larger fonts, in a single-column, single-space (between lines) format with ample spacing throughout and 1-inch margins all around. Submissions deviating significantly from these guidelines risk rejection without consideration of their merits.

All submissions will be treated as confidential, and will only be disclosed to the committee and their chosen sub-referees. In addition, the program committee may consult with journal editors and program chairs of other conferences about controversial issues such as parallel submissions.

Submission instructions:
Authors are required to submit their papers electronically, in PDF (without security restrictions on copying or printing). Submissions will be judged solely on the basis of the paper submitted by the deadline; post-deadline revisions will not be allowed.
When you register your submission, you will, among other things, have to register an abstract in plain text. This abstract plays a prominent role in the evaluation process, e.g., it is displayed when the paper is discussed. It is therefore advised that you make sure that the plain text abstract reads well.

Submit your paper here.
On-line posting:
Authors are encouraged to post full versions of their submissions in a freely accessible on-line repository such as the arxiv, the ECCC, or the Cryptology ePrint archive. (Papers that are not written well enough for public dissemination are probably also not ready for submission to FOCS.) We expect that authors of accepted papers will make full versions of their papers, with proofs, available before the conference begins. (This should be done in a manner consistent with the IEEE Copyright Policy.)
Prior and simultaneous submission:
The conference will follow SIGACT's policy on prior publication and simultaneous submissions. Work that has been previously published in another conference proceedings or journal, or which has a chance of being published before the end of the conference, will not be considered for acceptance at FOCS 2018. Simultaneous submission of the same (or essentially the same) extended abstract to FOCS 2018 and to another conference with published proceedings is not allowed. If there are other submissions/publications with substantial overlap, then this should disclosed on the title page.
Awards:
The Machtey award will be given to the best paper or papers written solely by one or more students. An abstract is eligible if all authors are full-time students at the time of submission. Eligibility should be indicated at the time of submission. All submissions are eligible for the Best Paper award. The committee may decide to split the awards between multiple papers, or to decline to make an award.
Presentation of Accepted Papers:
One author of each accepted paper will be expected to present the work at the conference.